“The Jaxers won’t be expecting that we’ll employ the same tactic twice, Hammer,” Imagawa assured Percy with as much confidence as she could muster. She herself wasn’t certain, but More believed, and so she obeyed.
“And we’re desperate,” Percy added quickly.
That was true, Imagawa admitted silently. Coffee, Salad, all of the other Golden Sabers had either been injured in the fighting with the Jaxers at Arles or had seen their Wildcats so badly damaged that there weren’t any left for them to operate. So now it was just Percy and her, up against the enemy. This was the best way to get close, close enough to hit the Jaxers, take them by surprise.
“The admiral knows what he’s about,” Imagawa pledged. “It won’t be long now.”
*****
Aboard DNS Arrogant, off Arles Station, Aquitaine system
“Sensors classify them as flotsam, Captain Stahl,” reported the ensign. “Bits and pieces of enemy wreckage tumbling through space.”
Stahl allowed himself a small sigh of relief. “Does the computer have an IFF for any of it?”
“Chunks of a pair of enemy fighters, Wildcats to be precise. Likely cut up in the fighting,” the ensign offered.
“Very well then. Helm, continue on course for the new visitor.”
“Aye, captain.”
*****
Arles Station, Aquitaine system
“Our fighters will handle like cows, Witch,” Percy warned. “Wearing all this crap doesn’t help our maneuverability.”
“Yes, it's going to mess up our machines’ centers of gravity,” said Imagawa. “We only have to get close.”
Percy remained quiet for a while. “It looks like they are buying it. No one is targeting us.”
“A good sign.”
Each Wildcat had been encrusted with hastily glued-on sections torn from the damaged Wildcats of the Golden Sabers squadron. Their menacing appearances had been made to look like ridiculous, haphazard agglomerations of wings and fuselages jutting at odd angles. Beauty didn’t matter at all. They had to look like ruined fighters, something that no one would shoot at. For the time being, no one was.
*****
Aboard DNS Arrogant, Arles Station, Aquitaine system
Stahl turned his attention to the incoming destroyer, watching it on the forward screen via teleoptics. It’s long, functional hull was painted blue and yellow, the national colors of the Republic of Halifax. Eruptions of flame and gas leaped from its upper surface.
“Missile launch,” Ensign Pavel Adler reported needlessly.
“Four missiles,” he added a few seconds later.
Stahl raised an eyebrow. That last was a surprise. “Only four?”
“Aye, captain. Four.”
“The Halies must be running lower on munitions than we had guessed. Very well. Point defenses?”
“Operational and on standby,” declared the weapons officer, Lieutenant Taro Thune. “They’ll be no trouble at all.”
Stahl nodded. “Let’s give this intruder the welcome he warrants. Six missiles, as soon as targeting data is inloaded.”
“Six, captain?” questioned Thune from the weapons station. “We’ll be down to just ten missiles.”
“Excuse me, lieutenant, but just who is the commanding officer of Arrogant?”
“Sorry, captain,” Thune replied meekly. “Apologies.”
“Proceed.”
“Aye, captain.”
Six Firebird antiship missiles lifted from ventral tubes in the Arrogant’s hull, gouts of flame racing from their sterns as they sped toward the enemy warship. Stahl watched their icons hurry across the intervening space. They would surely be overkill. The lieutenant, though he had spoken out of turn, was right. Arrogant would be down to just ten shipkillers now that he had thrown six at the RHN destroyer, but that was nothing to cause concern. The RHN ships in front of Arles were already packing up, forming tentative displacement envelopes to jump away, now that the civilians had been cleared from the station. He'd be resupplied soon, and have a full complement of weapons in a day or two. Killing the newcomer would be a feather in his cap. Taking out the destroyer, together with the orbital, would get him noticed.
“Inbound missiles - thirty seconds until they are in point defense range,” said Ensign Adler.
“Open fire as necessary,” he said to Thune.
“Aye, captain.”
The four Halifaxian missiles, unimaginatively named ‘Sledgehammers’ by the Halies, tore through the void, leaving trails of ionized particles in their wakes. Launched first, and faster than their Ajaxian counterparts, they would reach the Arrogant before her own missiles did the same with the RHN destroyer. There were few of them, and Stahl was certain that his own ship’s suite of point defense guns would eliminate them before they could be a threat.
Then the missiles, picked out as orange icons, seemed to slow. Stahl wondered if he was mistaken, whether what he was seeing was merely a glitch, a delay between the sensors’ reception and subsequent transmission of that tracking data to the main screen. It was certainly possible for a launching ship to remotely operate a missile, and alter its flight path, but since the weapons were all fire-and-forget, and fully capable of tracking and killing a target on their own, why bother?
“Sensors, are those missiles slowing?”
Ensign Adler ducked his head closer to his screen, but had no chance to respond before a severe kick, followed by another, and then another, and several more, emanating from the Arrogant’s stern, tore through the length of the destroyer. Stahl was knocked off his feet, and the lights flickered, and then failed completely, before coming back up on emergency power.
Stahl pulled himself up to his chair. “What the hell was that!?”
*****
“Let’s get out of here, Hammer!” Imagawa shouted as she maxed out the thrust from her Wildcat’s engines.
“I’m with you!” Hammer answered. “Don’t have to ask me twice!”
The two fighters, bedecked in wreckage, tottered away, seeking safety with the Steadfast.
*****
“Well?” Stahl snarled.
“Captain, we were hit by fighters, eight interception missiles launched at point-blank range,” Adler said. “Our shield held, but they took out the starboard maneuver drive. It's offline. Shield strength is down to sixty percent.”
“How did they get so close?” Stahl spat. But he already knew the answer. They had hid within the tumbling debris that had been approaching his ship. He had seen them, and been suspicious, and nonetheless allowed the objects to proceed on their approach vector. It had been a ruse, the same one that had been used against DN ships just weeks before. And he had fallen for it. Arrogant had paid the price for his oversight. He was sure that he would too, once the ship’s logs were examined after the battle. Examined, that is, if the ship survived the battle.
“Damn!” Stahl watched as the fighters fled. In the meanwhile, the four Sledgehammers had recovered their speed, and were closing in. “Damn!”
*****
Four Sledgehammers came within point defense range of the Arrogant. The DN ship’s defenses shattered two of the missiles, leaving two to come within lethal range of the ship’s hull. One was splattered by a hypersonic cloud of metallized sand, but the last evaded all attempts to destroy it. It smashed against the destroyer’s weakened shield, a bright white blossom of fusing particles that shook the vessel.
Again prostrate on the deck, Stahl clawed his way back up to his command chair. The lights on the Arrogant were out completely, including the emergency lights. Only the dim glows of the bridge crew’s screens provided illumination. Things were very bad.
He would have his revenge. His Firebirds were still on their way, and about to make their attack runs.
*****
Albacore’s smaller weapons blazed, bathing the lesser ships with the stricken DN destroyer in plasma fire.
“Keep that up,” More ordered his weapons officer, Mariano Mullins. “Focus
their attention on us and not Imagawa and Percy.”
“Aye admiral. Firebirds in range,” Mariano Mullins announced. “All defensive systems going active.”
“Hold nothing back,” More said. “We’re not saving anything for a later date.”
The defensive weapons on the Albacore erupted, belching out a cloud of magnasand and a blizzard of antimissiles, ECM jammers, decoys, and laser fire. The Firebirds were taken down, one after another, by this frothing wall of fire and microparticulates, but for one, that slammed into the port side amidships. Albacore rocked, and slewed briefly off course under the blow.
Albacore lived.
“Good work, ensign.”
“Thank you,” Mullins beamed.
*****
Stahl watched, aghast, as the Sapphire blew past him, in one piece despite the deadly salvo he’d flung against her. With contemptuous ease the enemy destroyer dispatched the Gremlins, with first Kobold, then Mephit, and lastly Salamander, disappearing in bright puffballs of fire and noiseless flame.
*****
“She’d badly damaged,” Kim said, indicating the Ajaxian warship. The captain was standing beside More on the Albacore’s bridge, her expression grim. “She’s out of the fight. I’m surprised she survived.”
“Some ships are just lucky that way,” More observed. “Such as our own.” He summoned a holo of Albacore, hovering between him and Kim. It provided a seemingly endless litany of ailments that troubled the ship. “We can’t stay to finish her off. We’re almost all out of Sledgehammers. Shield’s out. Albacore is a moving wreck. We have to look out for the crew’s safety.”
“Has it really come to this?”
“It’s sometimes part of the job,” More replied.
Kim nodded. “Awaiting your order, then.”
“Make the announcement.”
Kim swiped a command-level holographic interface into being, and tapped in rapid succession. “All hands, abandon ship.”
Chapter Fifteen
Aboard RHS Albacore, Arles Station, Aquitaine system
“You’re going to Arles?” Heyward’s holo floated beside More on the bridge of the Albacore. “Pardon my bluntness. Are you out of your mind?”
“Perhaps, but that's the best way to protect my ship.”
“Andy,” Tommasina Carey said, her holo standing, figuratively, beside that of Inigo Yao’s. “Albacore is done for. Your crew has left. They are being picked up by us as we speak. You shouldn’t stay on either. Get off and scuttle her as soon as possible. Then we all jump away.”
“Not till I’m certain that all of my people are safe. As long as I’m around, the big guy is going to chase me, and ignore the shuttles and escape pods.”
Heyward frowned. “You’re just endangering yourself needlessly, Andy. We know that you’re the bravest captain in the galaxy. You don’t have to keep on proving it.”
More smiled. “This isn’t about me, though I am in fact, the bravest of the brave, everyone knows that.” His tone grew serious. “The reactors have been rigged to blow?”
Heyward nodded. “Jenkins and company just returned. Everything is set. Remote detonation is at your command. Just say the word.”
“Good. The Ajaxians will never have those reactors. They will just end up in ships we’ll have to destroy in the future if they fall into their hands.” More checked his own holo, hovering beside his chair. “I see that you’ve left one of the entrances open for me. Good.”
Carey snorted. “Wait! You’re not taking Albacore inside that thing!”
More shrugged noncommittally. “I may have to. I’m going to buy us as much time as possible. I want him to follow me and me alone. Stand off at a distance, on the other side of the station.”
Inigo Yao finally spoke. “I haven’t had the chance yet to question your judgment, boss,” he said. “I am now. There’s got to be something better than this. He’ll just follow you inside and kill Albacore there, or block the entrance and trap you. You’ll never escape. Everyone’s been evacuated from the station. It’s just metal and memories now.”
“I know, “ More said, turning his face away from his friends, his colleagues, his brothers and sisters in arms.
*****
Aboard DNS Cawnpore, Arles Station, Aquitaine system
Cawnpore emerged from hyperspace after shortjumping with the unexpected suddenness of a whale surfacing beside a rowboat; a gigantic thing, black and gray, hanging in the void.
“There she is,” Ronner fumed as he assessed the information that streamed in via the holo beside him. The RHN destroyer had escaped him with a clever move, detonating a maneuver drive to simulate its destruction, fooling his battleship’s sensors. “And look!” Ronner said. “Stahl has gotten his ship wrecked by that Halie bastard!” The admiral slammed his fist into his palm. “Target the enemy destroyer!”
*****
“Launches detected,” Ally reported, unflappable as ever. “Twelve missiles, heavy class. Firebirds.”
More eased deeper into his chair. There were just two others remaining on the bridge with him. His executive officer, Captain Ariana Kim, and Ensign Cooper Hu, his jack-of-all-trades bridge crewmember. It was time for them to leave.
“Get out of here, both of you,” he said. “You don’t want to be on this ship when those missiles catch us. I’ll follow behind you. Don’t wait up.”
Kim’s brows knit. “You shouldn’t stay behind. There’s nothing more for you to do here. Everyone’s off, besides us three. I don’t want you getting ideas. Captains - and admirals - don’t go down with their ships anymore.”
“I appreciate the ancient nautical reference. I wasn’t planning to. There’s something - I want to be alone - before I leave.”
Kim exhaled slowly. “You’re my commanding officer. I go when you tell me to go.”
“Then get out of here. Head for Steadfast if you can. I plan to transfer my flag there. I’ll leave in the last pod.”
“Will do, admiral.”
Kim and Hu left the bridge, heading down the spinal corridor that led to the Albacore’s docking bay. Hu gave More one final, worried look, then she turned and was gone, following Kim into the gloom on the darkened ship.
*****
Aboard Cawnpore, Arles Station, Aquitaine system
“I wonder why he bothers to run,” Admiral Ronner sneered as the Albacore fled before his battleship. “He is dead no matter what.”
He runs because he is an officer, and an officer of whatever navy would never give up. Stahl kept that to himself. He had just been treated to a lecture by Ronner on the necessity of preserving one’s ship. Instead, he said, “He is stubborn, and merely seeks to delay the inevitable.”
“He is stubborn indeed,” beamed the ghostly Ronner that Stahl saw on the bridge of the Arrogant. “That destroyer will be gone soon enough. With Arles in my hands, the enemy will be deprived of a base from which to harry our supply ships.”
His hands, the captain thought sourly. As if Stahl and the vessels under his command had nothing to do with bringing the orbital under Ajaxian control.
“He is seeking to enter into the structure itself it seems,” Stahl said. “I would have expected that he would have avoided it entirely.”
“Cowardice, I think,” suggested Ronner. “He’s doing whatever he can to save his own skin.”
“What for, admiral? asked Stahl. Halifaxian captains were anything but cowards. “All of his people have abandoned the destroyer, which is a ruin. He can’t believe that he will preserve her.”
“Who knows, Stahl. It is not my job to get inside the head of a fugitive enemy officer. It is to kill him. Soon enough, that will have been achieved.”
“The other enemy ships will be escaping in the meanwhile,” Stahl reminded. “Their displacement bubbles are already up.”
“No matter. The true prize is the orbital, and the reactors that power her.”
“Aye, admiral. That is correct.” Stahl was silent for several moments. He watche
d as the Sapphire loosed several dozen fusion shells. “He fights until the end.” As an officer should. What officer worthy of his commission would do any less?
The fusion shells continued to pump out of the remaining functional turrets on the destroyer. Stahl anticipated that they were part of one, final, vengeful stab at the giant battleship. But no, they were something else. When the shells came within range of the incoming skipkiller missiles they exploded, temporary miniature suns blooming in the void. They either destroyed or damaged to the point of uselessness all twelve of the big missiles.
It was always theoretically possible to use fusion shells, or even missiles, to attack missiles, but it was rarely done as a matter of effectiveness and cost. Intercepting attacking weapons was extraordinarily hard to do because of the extremely high closing velocities. Even computers found tracking problematic, and missiles had the ability to bob and weave to avoid interception. There was also the matter of money. Fusion shells were so expensive that it was a rare thing to ‘waste’ them on defensive measures.
The Halifaxian captain was not worried about either. He had thrown five dozen weapons out into the darkness, knowing that, as a group, they would almost certainly take out most if not all of the missiles. As for cost, what did he care about that? His ship was dying, and he had nothing to lose by firing off the last of his ammunition.
“If he wishes to waste his warshots, then so be it,” growled Ronner after his strike had been negated. “I will get him in the end.”
Stahl saw that the enemy destroyer had bought itself enough time to find shelter inside the empty orbital. “He means to make you chase him inside,” Stahl observed.
“Then chase him I shall,” Ronner promised.
The Ajax Incursion Page 23
